The spread of Moscow’s jurisdiction was not limited to the postwar Soviet borders, but embraced areas beyond them as well. One ofthese was Czechoslovakia, Inhabited by an insignificant number of Orthodox believers, organized in thirty-six parishes. They included twelve Czech and twenty Carpatho-Russian parishes, the latter situated in the Slovakian part of the state. Thirty-two of these parishes were under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate. The other four were established by Russian emigres and belonged to the exarchate of Metropolitan Evlogii in Paris, that is, to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.67 IF the incorporation of Transcarpathia in the postwar Soviet territory guaranteed the establishment of rigid control over its population and the incorporation of the local Orthodox structures into the Moscow Patriarchate, the subjection of the Orthodox citizens of Czechoslovakia was a more difficult issue, as it concerned church bodies in a state that was not part of the Soviet Union.
The situation was further complicated by the specific organization of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia. During World War II, it was split into two parts: The Orthodox Czechs were governed by Bishop Gorazd (Pavlik) and were under German control, while the Orthodox believers in Slovakia were under the temporary administration of the priest Vasilii Solovyev, who was appointed by the Serbian Patriarchate in 1939. In 1942, the murder of Bishop Gorazd by the Nazis decapitated the Czech Orthodox community. In 1944, the Orthodox administration in the liberated part of Czechoslovakia was headed by Hieromonk Metodii (Kanchuga), whose office was situated in Banska Bistritsa. At the same time, he was the secretary of Father Vasilii Solovyev, who had remained in the German zone.
In a telegram to the new Czech government, Hieromonk Metodii expressed his joy at the liberation and called attention to the problems in his ecclesiastical organizatioN.68 His concerns were met with understanding by the new rulers, and the Ministry of Education in Prague set up a special institution, the Secretariat of the Orthodox Church in the Republic of Czechoslovakia. It was a temporary body Tasked with regulating ecclesiastical affairs until the restoration of normal relations with the Serbian Patriarchate. Meanwhile, Hieromonk Metodii became chairman of the secretariaT.69 As such he sent a letter to the locum tenens Alexii in which he expressed the gratitude of his flock for their liberation fTom the German yoke by the Red Army and asked for help.70 He wrote that the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia followed the example of its greater Russian sister and blessed the Soviet warriors. In a similar way, it sent its sons to the partisans to fight the enemy, and it prayed for their victory and for their dead heroes. In his letter, the administrator of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia also requested that the Moscow Patriarchate enter into a communion of prayer with it. He expressed the wish of his flock to be taken under its spiritual and moral protection. For this purpose, Metodii asked for permission for one or two delegates of his church to visit Moscow and to make the Russian church leadership acquainted with the needs of the Czechoslovakian flock. The government in Prague was also engageD in this endeavor, while the Red Army units and the chief headquarters of the Czech partisans served as mediators in communication between Patriarch Alexii and Hieromonk MetodiI.71
The Moscow Patriarchate did not protract the matter. In October 1945, the Archbishop of Orlov, Photii (Tapiro), visited Prague.72 HIs task was to establish contact with the parishes of Russian emigres and to persuade them to return to the bosom of the Russian mother church. Even so, he broadened his activities and established contact with the other Orthodox communities in Czechoslovakia. According to Soviet sources, this development was not an outcome of his own initiative, but was provoked by “the Czechs who came to him and invited him to conduct liturgy for them.”73 According to the Moscow Patriarchate, Photii’s activities were not directed against the jurisdiction of the Serbian Church in Czechoslovakia. Still, his talks with local Orthodox clerics had a far-reaching effect on the development of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia. In fact, they laid the grounds for the future reunion of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia with the Patriarchate of Moscow. While in Prague, he also met Hieromonk Metodii (Kanchuga) and Abbot Savva (Struve), both former partisans.
On behalf of the Pryashevo eparchy in Slovakia, they asked Patriarch Alexii to appoint a bishop to Bratislava and clarified that he had to be of Russian origin and not UkrainiaN.74
During his stay in Prague, the Moscow envoy also received applications for reunion from other Orthodox clerics, such as the former Bishop of Kaunas, Daniil (Yuzvyuk), and Archimandrite Arsenii (Shilovskii). At the same time, Archbishop Photii had talks with BishoP Savvatius, who represented the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople in Czechoslovakia and who had just been released From the concentration camp at DachaU.75 Czech by origin, Savvatius had only a few followers. He agreed to join the Moscow Patriarchate under the condition that he be granted a bishopric see in Czechoslovakia or in the Soviet Union. In Photii’s view, the Moscow Patriarchate did not need SavvatiuS. 76 Indeed, the latter created a great deal of trouble during the Prague negotiations about the Czech request for autocephaly. In a letter to Patriarch Alexii, Savvatius insisted on preserving the autonomous status he had received from the Patriarchate of Constantinople on March 4, 1923.77 In his turn, Archbishop Photii succeeded in persuading the Czechs of the inappropriateness of their request for autocephaly: They had neither a bishop of their own nationality nor an applicant suitable for the rank of bishop. Photii’s visit ended with a joint Russian-CzecH liturgy in the Cathedral of St. Cyril and Methodius in Prague, presented as “a demonstration of the canonical and cultural unity of the two churches.”78 THe road toward subjection of the Orthodox people of postwar Czechoslovakia to the Church of Moscow was prepared.
On November 8, 1945, the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia convoked a special conference in Olomuts (Moravia) that took the decision to move under Moscow’s jurisdiction. It sent a letter of gratitude to the Serbian Orthodox Church with a request to be released from its jurisdiction. In parallel, another letter was sent to Patriarch Alexii asking him to accept the Olomuts diocese under his protection but preserving the internal autonomy of the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church in correspondence with civil law. The Moscow Patriarchate was also asked to intercede with the synod in Belgrade for the peaceful resolution of this issue. The Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church planned to send a delegation to Moscow to submit an official request for the change of jurisdiction and to negotiate the conditions. Finally, until the ultimate approval of the transfer by the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexii was asked to appoint a hierarch to Czechoslovakia with the title “Archbishop of Prague and Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate.”79
On November 16, 1945, similar steps were undertaken by Orthodox activists in Slovakia. They were Carpathian Rusyns from the former Mukachevo-Pryashevo Orthodox diocese that was divided by the new borders. As a result, the Mukachevo part joined the Soviet Union as a Sub-Carpathian region (Zakarpatskaya oblasf) of Ukraine and thus was directly subordinated to the Moscow Patriarchate, while the Pryashevo part, situated in Slovakia, remained under Serbian jurisdiction. Upon the settlement of the new borders, pro-Moscow Orthodox activists in Slovakia raised the question of their reuniting with the
Russian ChurcH.80 According to them, it followed from their affiliation with the Mukachevo-Pryashevo diocese before the reunion of Sub-Carpathian Russia with the Soviet Union and the Mukachevo parishes with the Moscow Patriarchate. They also insisted that the Orthodox monastery in Ladomirovo, situated in Slovakia, but next to the Soviet border, should pass under the jurisdiction of Patriarch Alexii. Before the war, it was a stavropegic monastery of the Karlovci Synod—that is, the monastery was under the synod’s direct supervision. As such, it was not part of Serbian church jurisdiction in Czechoslovakia and its transfer to Moscow did not depend on the synod in Belgrade. During the war, its care was temporarily taken over by Metropolitan Seraphim (Lade), but after the flight of the Karlovci hierarchs to Munich, the monastery was left without canonical Supervision, and thus they considered that the Moscow Patriarchate was to be its proper masteR.81
Although Patriarch Alexii welcomed in principle the request of the Orthodox believers in Czechoslovakia to join his church, he pointed out that canon law should be observed and that thus this act could take place only with the blessing of the Serbian Church. According to his advice, the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia should inform the Serbian Synod of its wish to move under Moscow’s jurisdiction and to ask its consent. In addition, the Czechs should send Patriarch Alexii a written request for his intercession. Meanwhile, the procedure for the transfer of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia from Belgrade to Moscow could start only after the blessing of the Serbian Church was received. Patriarch Alexii also added that if the Orthodox Czechs wished to send their delegation to Moscow, they should send him a telegram in advancE.82
On January 10, 1946, the Czechoslovakian church delegation arrived in Moscow. Patriarch Alexii welcomed their initiative and approached the chairman oF the Serbian Synod, Metropolitan Josif, with a request that the problem be fixed in the same manner as in the Mukachevo casE.83 THe Serbian Church, however, firmly rejected the Olomuts decision. According to the canons, the Orthodox Czechs were obliged to ask their mother church first and only then to look for Moscow’s assistancE.84 Moreover, because there was no bishop present at this church conference, its decisions had no canonical validity. The synod in Belgrade stated that the Czech act was provoked by the visit of Archbishop Photii to Prague, where his liturgy in the Orthodox cathedral had been accomplished without the permission of Bishop Damaskin, the Serbian administrator of Czechoslovakia. The Serbian hierarchs found the behavior of the Moscow envoy noncanonical. They stressed that Czechs were obliged to report for everything directly and only to the Serbian Patriarchate; in other words, the Russian bishop had no right to ask them to report to him. Therefore, the Belgrade Synod informed Patriarch Alexii that it would present its answer only after sending a Serbian bishop to Prague to investigate whether the Czechs really wanted to pass under Moscow’s jurisdiction. According to Metropolitan Josif, the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate over the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia was approved by a special treaty signed by the Prague government in 1929. Therefore, the status quo could be changed only by the contemporary Czechoslovakian government’s Denunciation of the treaty. At the same time, in order to solve the Czechoslovakian church question in a canonical way, the ultimate decision must be taken by the Serbian Episcopal Conference, chaired by Patriarch Gavrilo. As long as the latter was abroad, the transfer of jurisdiction over the Czechoslovakian Church had to wait. According to Metropolitan Josif, “Patriarch Alexii and the Russian Orthodox Church have dealt a blow to the Serbian sister-church in response to its kindness to the Russians.”85 He stated that even the Moscow Patriarchate had no right to exert pressure over an autocephalous church such as the Serbian one.
Despite this Serbian resistance, the visit of the Czechoslovakian delegation to the Moscow Patriarchate helped brinG about the start of official negotiations with the Serbian Synod. On February 22, 1946, after receiving instructions fTom Karpov, the Bishop of Kirovograd, Sergii (Larin), was sent to Belgrade.86 On his arrival at the airport, he was welcomed only by officials fTom the Soviet embassy. No representative of the Serbian Church came to meet him. The Moscow envoy was informed in advance about the Belgrade Synod’s decision to reject the request for the transfer of its jurisdiction over Czechoslovakia. It is interesting that Moscow insisted on solving the problem while Patriarch Gavrilo had not yet returned to his motherland. At the same time, the political situation in Yugoslavia remained very tense. According to Soviet intelligence reports, Metropolitan Josif expected the overthrow of Tito’s regime and the restoration of the Karageorgievich (Karadordevic) dynasty.87
On February 23, the Moscow churchman met only Metropolitan Josif, who postponed the negotiations to February 27. During the second meeting, the Serbian hierarch rejected Moscow’s request and again postponed the negotiations to March 18, when the synodal members would attend an episcopal conference in Belgrade. In reply, Bishop Sergii asked Josif to give written permission for Patriarch Alexii to send his bishop to Prague or to authorize Bishop Sergii himself to take care of the Czech flock temPorarily. The leader of the Serbian Church did not satisfy either of these requests. Instead, on February 28, he handed Sergii a sealed letter addressed to the Moscow Patriarch.88
On March 1, Bishop Sergii (Larin) paid another visit to Metropolitan Josif. He insisted on being informed about the content of the letter because Patriarch Alexii had authorized him to do it. FinallY, the Serbian metropolitan showed him a copy of the letter. Then, the Russian delegates handed a declaration to Josif. It summarized canons from the ecumenical councils and selected texts from the statute of the Serbian Orthodox Church concerning the ways in which its synod could solve extraordinary cases such as the Czechoslovakian one. They also declared their expectation that Metropolitan Josif would react accordingly. The Russians also stressed that the Czechoslovakian question concerned the interests of three states and thus the synod had to be convoked immediately. Despite this pressure, the Metropolitan of Skopje refused to do iT.*9 AS a result, special measures were taken to break his stubbornness. Through the Soviet embassy in Belgrade, Bishop Sergii asked Patriarch Alexii to refer to the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church for help. In short time, the Soviet government negotiated with the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to denounce the agreement with the Serbian Patriarchate of 1929. The ministry responded that such a treaty did not exist and that the Czech embassy in Belgrade had taken the decision to present a verbal note to Metropolitan Josif making clear that the government in Prague had determineD that the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia would stay under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. In this way, one of the main arguments of Metropolitan Josif against the transfer was removeD.90
On March 18, the Russian church delegates were invited to attend the session of the Serbian Episcopal Conference where they were to present the demands of the Moscow Patriarchate. During this conference, the Serbian hierarchs asked Questions about the attitude of the Moscow Patriarchate to the separatist intentions of Orthodox communities in Macedonia, Slovenia, and Hungary, all of which were under Serbian jurisdiction.91 ACcording to Bishop Sergii, he and the other members of his delegation gave answers that satisfied the Serbs. Still, it seems that the latter continued to resist Moscow’s orders. On the next day, March 19, an official fTom the Czechoslovakian embassy visited Metropolitan Josif to present the verbal note of the Prague government. The Serbian hierarch asked to have it in a written form and, several hours later, he received it via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia. This time, Metropolitan Josif had no choice. In the evening he informed the Russian delegates that the transfer of both the Orthodox diocese in the Czech lands and the Pryashevo diocese in Slovakia were approved.
On March 23, 1946, the decree of the Serbian Synod concerning the transfer of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia fTom Belgrade to Moscow was ready. It declared that Patriarch Alexii had temporarily received jurisdiction over the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia. Still, this act needed to be confirmed by Patriarch Gavrilo after his return to Yugoslavia. The decree was officially handed over to Bishop Sergii. On the next day, a solemn liturgy performed by Russian and Serbian bishops presented the transfer as an act of good will. Metropolitan Josif did not attend. On March 27, the Moscow delegates were received by Marshall Tito. They thanked him for his support on behalf of Patriarch Alexii.92
On April 5, 1946, Patriarch Alexii appointed Elevtherii (Vorontsov) as Archbishop of Prague and of All CzechoslovakiA.93 ACcording to a report submitted by Georgii Karpov to the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Moscow PatriarcH did this “at the request” of the Czechoslovakian government. This request was made in February jointly by the ambassador to Moscow, Jaroslav Horak, and the vice minister of education, Karel Cermak, who was also in charge of religious affairS.94 The fact that the head of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church did not mention the ecclesiological grounds for Elevtherii’s appointment hints at the fact that the Kremlin used the Moscow Patriarchate for purely political aims. Still, the Soviet political leadership took special measures to present the acts expanding Moscow’s jurisdiction as canonically justifiable.
When Archbishop Elevtherii arrived in Prague in May 1946, he discovered how small his church was. It included twelve Czech, twenty Carpatho-Russian, and four Russian emigre parishes with thirty-eight priests (14 Czechs, 10 Carpatho-Russians, and 14 Russians) and three deacons. Although all of them shared the same religion, they lived separately and did not communicate with each other. They also had significant differences in church services. Czechs were strongly influenced by Protestantism and had short liturgies in their native language, whereas the Russian emigre parishes and those in the Pryashevo diocese conducted the liturgy in Church Slavonic. According to Elevtherii, each of these communities insisted on its own administration and did not want to unite under the supervision of a single central eparchial council. In addition, there was also a group of clergy and laity that protested against the subjection to Moscow and insisted on returning under Belgrade’s jurisdiction. These internal divisions were taken seriously by the new archbishop, who organized his church alongside the three ethnic groups by establishinG an exarchal council consisting of three priests: Russian (fTom the former emigrants), Czech, and Carpatho-Russian (fTom the Pryashevo diocese in Slovakia).95
World History
